


I Always Knew To Call Her My Lady

by alexygalaxy



Series: Destiny's a Funny Thing (aka Vox Merlin) [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Blood, Crossover, Gen, u get to meet a god in here and if i made her a lil sexy well then i made her a lil sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28545159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexygalaxy/pseuds/alexygalaxy
Summary: It’s calling him down, down, to the bottom of the castle where dangerous things go to be guarded. He doesn’t think he could refuse this summons if he wanted to.----Vax has two fated meetings, one with a Goddess and one with an Ally.
Relationships: The Raven Queen & Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Vax'ildan & Allura Vysoren
Series: Destiny's a Funny Thing (aka Vox Merlin) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997629
Kudos: 12





	1. chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> shout out 2 judas by lady gaga havin u on repeat for 3 hours got me thru this first chapter

Vax is sixteen, and Vex is nudging at his shoulder to get him up to check their hunting traps today. He already doesn’t like getting up this early, but today there’s a rock in his gut that’s pulling him even harder to the bed than normal. Vex jostles him, less gentle than before, and he opens his eyes and there’s fear in them. He begs her, desperately, to go fishing at the lake instead today, we’ll check the traps tomorrow, he doesn’t know why but he’s got an awful feeling about it, and Vex just trust him please, _please._ The next day they check the traps and find their spot in the forest littered with bodies, stray arrows, and hoofprints. A bandit siege, a bloody one, on whatever poor travelers happened to pass that trail yesterday instead of the twins. 

Vax is eleven and he’s in the storeroom at night, standing with a lantern over the piles of fabric his mother plans to sew as he tries to spot the mouse he knows ran in here. Usually Trink keeps them away, but this little valiant seems to not be afraid of cats. The family can’t afford to lose the money they’d get from these dresses, he _has_ to catch it. He peers around, lantern light flickering as he swings it to shed light in the darkest corners. Something scurries over his foot and he jumps, jerking his arm and sending the lantern flying. He sees it tumble in slow motion, the soft glow making spirals on the wall. He lunges for it. He shouldn’t make the catch, he knows he’s just short of grabbing the handle, and yet his fingertips snag and turn the freefall into a fixed pendulum, flame rocking back and forth safely in his fist. 

Vax is eight and he’s romping in the woods with Vex. The trees are impossibly thick and dense, seeming so large as to be hundreds of years old, though they may just look that big since the twins are so small. They’ve been chasing after butterflies and stepping in mud puddles for hours and they’re starting to get bored. There’s this one tree, though, full of low hanging branches and holes and knots, like it's just begging to be climbed. They don’t even have to speak to begin racing up it, each picking a side and straining as much as their little limbs can handle to reach further faster. Vax finds himself stuck for a moment, his only handhold a twig too thin to support even him. He reaches for it anyways, and it almost seems to grow under his touch as he uses it to launch himself to the next sturdy branch, leaving his sister in the dust. As she scales the other side, nearly catching up to him, a branch snaps in her hand and sends her skidding down as Vax looks on, momentarily terrified, before her fingers snag on a knot in the trunk she must have missed the first time she passed it.

Vax is five and he’s balling up his fists in rage because his sister’s not listening to him. Mom said to stop playing with the dirt, and there’s nothing good in that hole anyways, so she better stop poking a stick into it. She laughs and says it might be bunnies or groundhogs, and she wants to see them, she bets she can get them out. He whines even more and she sticks her tongue out, trying to kick him away. He calls her name again, she doesn’t even turn to look, but he knows she needs to stop, _now_ . He runs and pushes her, far harder than he’s ever been able to push his sister, but she’s not doing what he _wants_ , and as she falls, she sees just as well as him the snap of a snake’s jaw in the space where her hand had just been. 

Vax is twenty and he’s shooting awake in a room it takes him a second to remember is home now, something pushing on the inside of his skull with a wildness he hasn’t felt since the first time his magic manifested. It’s calling him down, _down_ , to the bottom of the castle where dangerous things go to be guarded. He doesn’t think he could refuse this summons if he wanted to. 

He throws the blankets off and shivers in the cold. He rubs his eyes just to make sure he isn’t dreaming, and tugs on his boots as quietly as he can to not wake Vex. She knows nearly everything about his magic, but he isn’t sure she’d understand this thing that’s calling his name without ever saying it. 

“ _Forbearnan_ ,” he whispers, and a small flame lights in his palm. He cups it gently to shield it from wind as he slips out the door.

He’s thankful for the ease at which he slips into the shadows, nearly two decades of practice making dark corners seem like a second home. He’s also thankful for how _dull_ the castle usually is, that the guards stationed in every hallway aren’t even _trying_ to look for skulkers like him. In the moments the clink of their chainmail gives away that they might be coming to investigate, he quenches the light in his hand, and presses himself to the wall, and without fail they pass him over. 

Wherever he’s being called, he hasn’t walked here before. He turns corners into corridors he didn’t know existed, and knows exactly which unused archways to duck into. He finds himself padding down a dusty stairwell and trying very hard not to sneeze.

As his feet touch solid dirt, he lets the flame grow in his hand, lighting up the staunch blackness around him. No one’s been down here in a long time, the sconces don’t even have unlit torches in them. The fear of being caught slides off his shoulders, immediately replaced by the fear that Vex will never find out what happened to him if this is a trap. 

Then, another wave of that calling crashes over his mind, strong enough that he almost trips, and the second fear slips away too. He’s supposed to be here, he’s _safe_ here.

He takes off down the corridor, running as fast as he feels able to with his incredibly limited visibility. The calling is getting overwhelming, pulses racking his body quicker than he can follow the impulses. He feels like a leaf in a river current, the water picking up speed just before a waterfall. 

He’s looking at a stone door, ancient and crumbling. There may have been runes or carvings adorning it in intricate patterns, but whatever was once there has been gouged out by a messy hand. He presses a hand to the slashes, and he feels something like loss. He leans into the door, and it does not budge. 

“ _Tospringe_!” He shouts the spell, desperate to get inside. The door shifts under his palm and he rushes into the space now creaking open before him. 

It’s a temple, he realizes, abandoned and left to be forgotten. Statues line the walls, of some sprawling figure in flowing robes with wings protruding from their back. Each one has limbs and face shattered, likeness disfigured to the point where he couldn’t parse whose worship this place was for if he tried. The floor lays cluttered with indiscernible rubble; piles of stone and the ashes of long-dead fires line his path to the only standing relic left. He stumbles toward it, the force of attraction fully irresistible. He collapses to his knees at its base, and everything begins to make sense. 

He is staring into an empty basin, made of pure white porcelain. It seems like it ought to have been shattered with the rest of the items in this temple, but the way it sends sparks down his arms as he braces his hands on the lip gives him an idea why it wasn’t. Inside the basin are painted words in a language he can’t read, but he knows what they mean. 

_In every drop, a thousand futures, but only one end._

He extends one hand over the basin, and the words are in his throat before he can think them.

“ _Folma blodige_ ,” he says, and he feels a searing pain as a gash opens across his palm. One drop of blood splatters against the porcelain, then another, and another. He watches as they roll slowly down to meet at the very base, and then even as the pain fades from his hand and the blood stops falling, the basin begins to fill with thick, red liquid, rising steadily until it reaches the very lip of the bowl. He takes a breath and sticks his head in.

**Vax’ildan,**

she says, and her voice is as familiar as the sound of his own,

**my fate-touched, how good it is to finally see your face.**

He feels something soft cup his chin, and tilt it up. There is a figure before him. Flowing robes, black satin reflecting light with no source; black feathered wings sprouting from her back, spread wide and enveloping the two of them almost like a shelter; a mask over her face, smooth and white, the only features two empty eye holes and the mouth curved forward into a beak. Her hair is blood red, spilling down her back, then branching off into a million strands as it nears her feet, each one extending far beyond his sight, pulled taught by some unknown force. 

Vax is breathless as he looks on her. He knows her, he realizes, he has known her every second he’s been alive. He has known her in every flash of gold across his eyes as he casts a spell, in every tug at the back of his mind that something must happen and he can’t explain why. He has known her in the seconds before a poisonous snake leapt out of a hole at his sister, in the branches of a tree as he climbed to its peak, in the flickering of lantern light in his mother's store room, in the blood that was not his soaked into a forest trail. It is her, in his magic, in his premonitions. It has always been her.

“My Lady,” he says, and bows. 

**There is no need to bow.**

Vax straightens up. 

**Do you know why I have called you here?**

“I - I don’t. I know who you are, but not what you want from me. I don’t even know your name.”

**I have been called many names. Most knew me as the Matron of Ravens, in the time when they did not fear knowing me. They revered me, once, for I know the path of every life.**

As she speaks, she runs one hand through her hair, fingers parting the locks as she pulls it back behind her head. She brings it forward a moment later, fingers closed around a single red strand. She holds it out to Vax, and he takes it tentatively. His entire fist can barely close around it.

**What do you feel in this string of fate?**

Vax squeezes it, tugs a little. “It’s … thick. And … really taught.”

The Matron nods, sagely.

**Indeed, it is. This strand is heavy, it holds a great deal of power. And it is wound tight with countless others, at countless points.**

Vax drops it. He doesn’t like the feeling of being responsible for something so important. The Matron sees, and though the mask doesn’t move, he feels her smile at him sadly. 

**This is your string, my Vax’ildan. I call you fate-touched for a reason. Your life is entangled with so many more, your actions will shape the very future of this world.**

Vax tries to back away, and moves nowhere. “I don’t want that,” he stammers, “I _don’t_ want that.” The Matron keeps talking, paying his protests no mind.

**You have the power to transform Camelot in your hands, if you follow the right path. Percival is set to be the greatest leader this city has ever known, the once and future king. Your sister and the Lady Keyleth have places at his side. And you, Vax’ildan - it is your job to shape their lives to this end.**

Vax’s brow is furrowed in fear, and he tries to look down, but his gaze is locked on the Matron.

**This mantle is yours to carry, should you take it up.**

He scoffs. “Do I have a choice?”

**You _always_ have a choice, my Vax’ildan. You can hide from this destiny, or you can embrace it. I cannot control what you do, I only watch over it. **

**But I must warn you. You cannot feel the knotting of the strings of fate as I can. If you stray from the path now laid before you, the consequences may be larger than you can possibly imagine. There are many ways to untie a knot. Very few leave all the strings intact.**

Vax stares in silence for what feels like an eternity. He watches as she picks up the strand, _his_ strand, from where it lies at his feet and tucks it back behind her ear, letting it settle perfectly smooth against the rest. He forces himself to go through the motions of breathing, making his ribcage rise and fall in rhythm even as he sucks in no air from this space. He tries to calm the racing of his mind, and when it fails, he falls back on what he’s always been good at - wry humor. 

“Percival? The Once and Future King, are you sure? Have you seen him?”

The Matron laughs. 

**I have. I have also seen the man he can become, the echoes of which reside in his heart even now.**

“If you’re telling me I gotta make Percy into a good person, I don’t think I can do that. I mean, I can’t do any of this, but I _definitely_ can’t do that.”

She doesn’t laugh this time.

**I can sense apprehension. It is understandable. But know that I am here to guide you. You are mine, and I am yours; we are each other’s keepers in fate. You have a great future ahead of you, and it will not be easy to bear, but I will help you carry the weight.**

**As I have aided you so far, I will continue to aid you. And should you need more help than a subtle feeling, you know the way to my temple now. Until we commune again, my Vax’ildan.**

As she finishes speaking, her wings flare out, feathers fluttering off as they snap to their full span behind her. 

“No, _no_ , please, I still have questions,” Vax calls, reaching out towards the Matron as the shower of feathers begins to obscure her visage. “Please, I don’t know what to do, I don't know how to have a destiny! Please!”

His head jerks up from the pool instinctively as he gasps for breath. He is alone in the temple once again.


	2. chapter 2

It’s been a few days since he met the Matron, and Vax is brimming over with questions. There’s so much he wants to know about her, that he’d be arrested and probably killed for asking if he brought it up to the wrong person. He hasn’t even told Vex. He knows she’ll immediately jump to the worst conclusion, and he wants to know enough to assuage her fears when he manages to bring it up. 

Luckily, Percy’s out on patrol in the forest today. He left just after dawn, giving Vax most of the day off - after he finished tidying the prince’s chambers, washing yesterday’s clothes, and mucking the now empty horse pen, of course. He’s found his way to the palace library, it seems as good a place as any to find an old forgotten book that might tell him something about Her.

He peeks his head in the door and the woman at the desk doesn’t even look up. She’s in simple blue robes, her hair braided elegantly down her back, glasses perched on her nose as she scratches something on parchment with a swift hand. He steps all the way in and walks, cautiously in the direction of the shelves lining the space behind her. As he passes her, she doesn’t acknowledge him, eyes still fixed to whatever she’s writing. 

This might be a lot easier than Vax thought. 

He winds his way into the dustiest back corners. He knows very little about palace libraries, but he can only assume that books about magic-granting entities in a kingdom that’s banned magic probably won’t be displayed front and center. 

The downside of the dustiest back corners, he realizes, is that they also tend to be horribly unorganized. He doesn’t want to make a lot of racket sifting through books by hand, because he doesn’t want to have to answer why he’s poking around in the books nobody wants to read. But … he doesn’t have to sift through by hand. He tilts the books out of the shelves with telepathy, floating them down so he can read the titles, and slipping them silently back into place when they prove un-useful. 

There’s a lot of old records, histories of lord lines broken centuries ago and recollections of wars between kingdoms that no longer exist. He finds a few dangerously out of date medicinal texts, and a good collection of tomes classifying magical beasts and creatures. The closest he’d gotten was a book on how to read the language of the old religion, but what little he’d skimmed from the pages seemed to hold no information on any of the deities. 

He’s in the process of slipping a book back onto one of the top shelves when he hears a cough to his left. His head whips over and the librarian is standing at the end of the shelf, eyes fixed on the tome suspended above Vax’s head. He drops the spell, letting the book fall out of the air. He lunges for it, grabbing it in both hands, and trying to hide the dip he takes from the unpredicted weight. 

“Oh, haha, I was just, uh,” he stammers, “Just putting this book back. But, uh, I can’t reach the top shelf so I was. Tossing it?”

He launches the book in the air as he talks, not even checking the trajectory he’s aimed it on. His eyes are fixed on the librarian, trying to decipher if she’s bought his ruse. Instead, he sees her eyes flash a familiar golden. 

“Young man, that’s absolutely  _ no _ way to treat a book,” she says with absolute disdain. 

Vax follows her gaze to the book, staring dumbfounded as the pages settle, the cover closes, and it guides itself up to an upright position in its spot on the shelf. 

“You - you’re -” he starts, eyes flicking between the book and the librarian.

“Besides,” she continues, paying absolutely no mind to his confusion, “I believe you may be looking for something more along these lines?”

Another book slides itself off a shelf, descends through the air gently, and hovers in front of Vax. It wiggles in the air almost invitingly. He reaches out a tentative pair of hands to take it. 

“Come on, let’s talk.” She turns on her heel and moves towards a small door set into the side of the room. “Bring the book.”

She’s lead him into what’s clearly some kind of living quarters. There’s a bed in the corner, several cabinets, and a table with two chairs at it. She gestures at a chair and Vax sits, putting the book awkwardly on the table in front of him. She takes care to lock the door behind them before sliding into the seat across from Vax. 

“Youhavemagictoo?” he sputters all at once. 

“Yes, I do,” she answers. “Though I’m usually much more careful about using it than that.”

Vax gulps. The glare she’s sending over the bridge of her glasses rivals Vex’s. “Sorry.”

She hums disbelievingly.

Vax’s gaze shifts down towards the table, embarrassed silence falling heavy on his shoulders. He clears his throat and tries to shake it away. “So, uh. Y- … Um.” The realization that he doesn’t know her name makes the embarrassment almost suffocating. “I don’t know your name. Mine’s Vax.”

“Pleasure, Vax,” she says, and for the first time, her stern demeanor begins to crack a little. “I’m Recordskeeper Allura Vysoren, though just Allura’s fine now that we’re acquainted.”

“Allura,” he says, and mimics a little bow. “Pleasure as well.”

“I don’t recognize your face. Are you new at the castle?”

“‘Bout a month. Came here with my sister from a real small village out on the borders. Looking for new work after things got a little too … you know … suspicious, I guess. Got somehow picked up by the Prince and the Lady Keyleth.”

“Is your sister - ?”

“No. Just me.” Vax slumps in his chair, then straightens again as he adds, “And you.”

Allura just nods. 

“Why?” Vax asks, the  _ ‘are you here, of all people, of all places, it’s a deadly match and we both know it’ _ implied. 

“I’ve been at this palace longer than you’ve been alive, Vax. It used to be my job to do magic here. When the purge came, it was honestly safer to stay here. I was the most famous arcanist in the kingdom. If I had split and run, I would’ve been recognized and hunted down in weeks. It was easier to renounce all magic and stay where Raishan thought she was keeping an eye on me.” She sighs. “I probably  _ could _ leave now that I’ve had a couple decades to fall out of infamy but ... there’s other things here that I can’t leave.”

“What things?”

“Mostly Kima.” 

“Kima?”

“My wife,” she says, and Vax just now notices the thin gold band around Allura’s finger as she can’t help but smile and glance at it. “Lady Kima, head of the palace guard. I’m sure you’ve seen her if you work in the palace. She’s  _ honorbound _ to Raishan, you know. Queen saved her life in battle and now she owes a life debt.” Allura laughs, hollow. “You know these knights and their obsessions with oaths. But … she stays, I stay with her.”

Vax isn’t sure what to say at this point, so his attention turns to the book. He reaches out a hand, brushing his hands against the weathered page edges, tracing the embossing on the leather cover. 

“You told me to bring this in here,” Vax eventually states. “What for?”

“Oh, yes! The book!” Allura starts, shaking herself out of reverie and leaning forward with an excited gleam in her eye. She tugs it from Vax’s grasp, holding it up in front of her proudly. 

“This,” she says, running her fingers almost lovingly down the spine, “is a spellbook.  _ My _ spellbook.”

Vax’s mouth drops a little in surprise. 

“It’s what I trained with, years ago, before the purge. It served me well, in all my time as an arcanist here, and I figured a young sorcerer like yourself could do with a little book learning. There’s only so much you can figure out on instinct.”

Before Vax even has a chance to respond, she’s opened the book and began thumbing through the pages. “This here’s some basic object control,” she says, turning the book briefly around to show him, “followed by a big section on the elementals. Then … let’s see … oh! Healing and poisoning, then battle spells, some summoning and binding charms. There’s a bit here on curses, but I’ve actually got a whole other book on that if you’re interested. After that, I think there’s some -”

“Is there anything on the gods of the old religion?” Vax juts in.

“Oh - not in here. But I know a little, and I have some other books. Why do you ask?”

“That’s why I came in here,” he says, leaning forward with a new fervor. “I want to know about the gods that give magic. This might sound crazy, but if anyone here will believe me it’s you - I heard a voice, the other night. It was something inside the castle and it, it came into my dreams, sort of? It woke me up and it was calling me somewhere, and I -”

“ _ Vax.” _ Allura slams the book shut and almost knocks her chair over with the force with which she pushes herself across the table at him. She speaks with a terrifying clarity. “ _ What. Did he. Say to you. _ ”

“H - he?” Vax stammers. “No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a he. I barely knew anything, but I  _ knew _ to call her My Lady.”

“What?”

“It took me down to this temple that the castle is built on, with some kind of stone pool? And it - it filled with blood and I stuck my face in and I saw this … this Lady, dressed in black robes with black wings and red hair that went on forever and a bird face and -”

“You saw the Matron,” Allura says, shoulders slumping with relief.

“Yes! Yes, the Matron of Ravens, that’s what she called herself, and I -”

“Oh, thank the gods,” Allura mutters, sinking back into her seat and burying her face in her hands.

“Allura? Are you … okay?”

“I’m fine, Vax.” She picks her head up, excited smile forced back across her lips. “It’s nothing. Don’t concern yourself with it.”

“Are you su-”

“You wanted to know about the Matron of Ravens, yes?”

“I -” Vax stops himself. He knows the face of someone with secrets they’re beyond desperate to keep. “I did, if you can help.”

“Certainly.” She stands and moves to unlock the door, motioning for him to follow. “I’ve got a few histories of the old religion lying around somewhere, you can bring them in here to read if you like. I wouldn’t recommend bringing them out of the library for, well, obvious reasons, but you’re welcome to the back shelves any time.”

“Thank you,” Vax says, though it feels subpar for all that Allura’s offered him. 

“Of course,” Allura answers, turning to face him with a genuine smile this time. “I know how lonely it can be here, for people like m- us. It’s the least I can offer. Now, come.” She pushes the door open and steps back into the winding shelves. “Let’s get you some history books.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!! if you're so inclined, please drop a kudos and/or comment, and you're welcome to come talk to me about this au (please talk to me about this au i have so many ideas) on my tumblr at [cadykeus-clay](https://cadykeus-clay.tumblr.com)


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